


An Existential Crisis

by walkwithursus



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Narlie, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 05:15:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12698097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkwithursus/pseuds/walkwithursus
Summary: This ‘maybe’ was the closest Nathan was going to get to a direct admission, because he’d never ask, never say aloud, “I want you to fuck me, Charles.” But that was alright. Charles could compensate, could facilitate. And if Nathan needed him to be the one to say it, he would, because he’d figured out what he wanted now. And within the realm of Earthly possibility, Charles would give him anything.R 18+ only please.





	An Existential Crisis

It began with a simple question:

“What does it… feel like?”

Charles glanced up from his paperwork to where Nathan lay sprawled on the chaise lounge under the South-facing window of his office, twirling one of the CFO’s’ pens between his fingers. 

Charles hadn’t been listening to him -- not attentively, at least. The cease and desist order in front of him was turning into an all-afternoon project, and what little attention he could spare wasn’t enough to follow the halting, monosyllabic train of thought Nathan had been whiling away at since he’d lumbered in over an hour ago. 

Nathan hadn’t spoken much since he'd arrived, which was nothing out of the ordinary. The Dethklok front man’s office visits were usually a silent affair provided nothing weighed too heavily on his mind, in which case he’d been known to pace the room, touching the various artifacts and pulling books from the shelves just to look at the covers. Or else he’d overfeed the fish, or the ball python, whichever Charles deemed could withstand a little extra attention. But Nathan hadn’t done any of that today, in fact he’d barely moved since he’d collapsed on the couch, so without the need to supervise his exploration, Charles’ attention had admittedly been elsewhere. So he couldn’t quite recall what Nathan had been saying before this, or how his question might pertain to their one sided conversation. 

_What does it feel like?_

Charles ruminated on the question a moment more, then turned a page of the document and asked, “What does _what_ feel like?” 

A few seconds ticked by, and when Nathan spoke again his tone had lost its rambling quality. It was purposeful, more focused, commanding a fraction more of Charles’ attention. “What does it feel like for _you_ … when we… _y’know._ ” Nathan punctuated the word with a wave of his hand, and somehow Charles knew exactly what he meant.

“Oh.” _That._ He turned to a new page and initialed a section of text, scrawled a signature and date on the line. “I don’t know. Similar to what you feel, I expect,” he said.

Nathan sat up a little straighter, and the leather cushion under him squelched with the shift in weight. He’d stopped twirling the pen. “But it’s not the same,” he insisted. “I mean, it’s got to feel different, right? Getting uh… _hnffrn_ ,” he muttered under his breath, apparently searching for the phrase in his mind, or the will to say it. “Getting uh, getting… fucked.”

“Ah.” Charles paused mid-paragraph to look up at Nathan, who glanced away when their eyes met.

This wasn’t exactly the conversation he’d anticipated having when Nathan walked in. Not in his office, at three o’clock in the afternoon with a stack of paperwork at his elbow thicker than a phone book. If he were to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t a conversation he’d imagined them having _ever._ So it was impossible to say what had driven him to ask such a question. Blatant curiosity? Concern for Charles’ enjoyment? The latter had to be obvious, Charles thought, but then again, his perception of their physical relationship and Nathan’s could be entirely different. God only knew they saw most things quite differently. 

Charles appraised the frontman’s expression, equal parts thoughtful, sincere, and embarrassed, and decided the question did not come from a bad place. So it was answerable. 

“It’s ah, nice,” he said at last, and retrained his eyes to the document.

Nathan was unsatisfied. “Nice? Really? Gee, _thanks,_ Charles. I’m real glad it’s _nice._ ”

Charles caught his tone and amended with a small smile, “Alright. Better than nice, then.” He tapped the spacebar of the desktop’s keyboard and waited for the computer screen to boot up.

Nathan was quiet for a while, long enough that Charles was able to scan a page of the cease and desist into an email and fire it off to the Dethklok legal team for review. Nathan’s voice filled the silence a moment later. “So it feels good?”

“Mm,” Charles hummed as he scanned the email confirmation, searching for the pen he’d set down a moment ago.

Nathan made an irritable noise in his throat, and tried to clarify. “Yes?”

“Mhm.” The pen had rolled under an envelope.

“Huh…” Nathan reclined back against the chaise, arms crossed over his chest and staring skyward. The ends of his hair touched the floor, black silk on red carpet, and the afternoon sunlight shone through the glass above his head to cast a prism of color across his cheek - red, green, and gold. Charles glanced away, picked up his pen -- 

“And…”

He set it back down and pursed his lips. Nathan’s brow was furrowed with deep thought, eyes piercing through the beamed wood ceiling.

“Do you think like... it would feel good for me?” Nathan managed at last, more of a grumble than a bona fide question, and quiet enough that Charles wasn’t entirely sure whether he was meant to hear. It wasn’t until Nathan shot him an anxious, stabbing glare that he realized he awaited an answer. 

But what kind of answer to give? Where was this question coming from, and what exactly was Charles supposed to infer from it? He’d known Nathan to think aloud at times, to say some unexpected things, but never had he let slip something quite so personal. At least, it was personal from Charles’ perspective. To Nathan, it could have been no more than a passing thought, a flight of fancy, and so it was important that Charles not let his imagination run unchecked. He had to stay grounded in the facts of the thing, in the here and now, where he could focus his energy on formulating an appropriate answer to the question. One that might excavate the deeper meaning behind Nathan’s words, if there were any deeper meaning to be found. Which was, in many ways, doubtful. 

Charles found the staple in the upper lefthand corner of his document and folded it closed to the front page. “I don’t know, Nathan. Is this something you ah, want to try?” 

**_“No.”_ **

The fervency of Nathan’s answer fell short by half a beat. “No. _Fuck_ no,” he rumbled, and he stood from the lounge a second later with his fists clenched, visibly tenser than he’d been only moments before. He bit his lip like he was on the verge of saying something else, but seemed to decide against it and said, “I uh, I gotta get goin’.” 

Charles waved his pen dismissively, and did not look up until the door had slammed shut behind the man’s back. The office was suddenly much quieter without Nathan’s presence, which seemed foolish considering how little noise he really made. Other than the swish of the pen between his fingers or the scrape of his thumb across the screen of his Dethphone, he wasn’t much of a distraction, and the occasional throaty comment or chuckle was easily tuned out. His voice was deep, like a cat’s purr or a space heater, the type of background noise Charles could tolerate. Now that it was gone, its absence was sharply noticed, and the room had lost a touch of its warmth.

If Nathan’s reaction were anything to go off of, the question had probably been a slip of the tongue, a momentary lapse in the somewhat functional filter he put his words through before they left his mouth. And yet Charles couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d raised the topic on purpose. To what end, other than Charles’ frustration? It was hard to say.

Nathan was not good at sitting on secrets, which is why it was only a handful of days later that he broached the subject again, this time at the tail end of a band meeting. He’d lingered after the other boys had filed out for a late afternoon breakfast, pretending to check his Dethphone as Charles gathered the materials he’d laid out on the conference table back into his briefcase. Art for the new album - options for the body of the CD, the record, the cassette tape (which Pickles had single-handedly brought back by using a cassette deck publically all of once). The lock screen Nathan thumbed at was clearly visible from Charles’ point at the head of the table -- very obviously _not_ the keyboard he was pretending it to be, so Charles suppressed a chuckle and said, “Something on your mind?”

Nathan shrugged and lowered his arm with the phone in it. “Not really,” he said “Just… thinking.”

A dangerous pursuit. Charles shuffled a handful of papers into a stack and fixed a binder clip to the top. “About?” 

Nathan shrugged again. “Nothing, really. Just -- Remember the other day, when we were talking about, uh… when I asked what it felt like when we…?” He tapered off, leaving the suggestion hanging in the air.

Charles mercifully picked up the thread as he settled the papers at the bottom of his briefcase. 

“I remember.” 

An understatement. The conversation had not been far from Charles’ mind during the interim between Nathan’s office visit and now. He’d devoted time -- perhaps _too much time_ \-- to thinking about the questions he’d asked, trying to draw some semblance of a conclusion as to what Nathan had been thinking. Which was hard to do, when Nathan could only give him half the information he needed to piece together the situation. It was frustrating, like having only the corner pieces to a puzzle, or trying to work out the picture having lost the box. But in a way Nathan wasn’t wholly responsible for Charles’ frustration. It was likely Nathan didn’t really know how the pieces of his own puzzle fit together, had unconsciously sought the manager out for guidance. A fresh set of eyes on the problem at hand.

Nathan fidgeted with his Dethphone, pressing the tips of the jagged spikes into the pads of his fingers until they left behind depressions. “I just. Well, I feel like it would hurt, y’know. Having that… having something up there.” He was trying to be casual, had chosen this setting and this time to make the whole thing seem offhand. Like an out of the blue, oh-by-the-way sort of thing. Charles pretended not to notice how very un-casual it was and affixed a politely interested expression on his face. Nathan kept his eyes on the floor and finished, “Does it hurt?” 

That was a complicated question to answer, especially if Charles intended to do so honestly. Which he did. There was no point in hiding the truth. Whatever Nathan intended to do with this information, the more informed he was, the less likely he (or God forbid, one of the other boys) was to end up injured or otherwise worse for wear. The band couldn’t afford another repeat of the sucking-your-own-dick fiasco, and if they were about to have an object-in-the-rectum masturbation situation on their hands… Well, that simply would not do. So Charles cleared his throat, swallowed, and chose his words carefully. “It ah… depends.”

“On what?” Nathan asked.

Charles hesitated. He couldn’t help but wonder if he was really the best person to be answering these questions. Far from an expert, it was entirely possible he could say something inaccurate, steer Nathan in the wrong direction and potentially lead him to an injury. It would be wiser to have him consult a doctor, or better yet, a sex guru to get the facts. That would please the guys, having a _sex guru_ on the payroll. How did they not already have one? Or had they already had one at some point, and somehow managed to drive the poor soul off? Knowing his boys, it was entirely possible, yet still the idea seemed worth looking into. Charles made a mental note to come back to it later, while in the meantime Nathan awaited a response from Charles, Jack-of-all-trades, CFO and manager-lawyer extraordinaire. “Well, it depends on a few things, Nathan,” Charles answered patiently.

“Like the size of the dick?”

“Sure. Yes. That is definitely ah, definitely an important factor to ah, consider.” Charles loosened and re-straightened his tie, as it suddenly felt much too tight. Nathan had come up with that quite fast -- faster than he would have expected, if this entire thing were of passing interest. It seemed he’d given this a fair bit of thought, and it was quickly becoming apparent that they were not dealing with a random object situation. This was something full on. _The size of the dick_ implied the involvement of a second person, and as far as he knew, the only man Nathan was having sex with was, well, himself, so. There was that. 

Nathan scratched the crown of his head and muttered, “Yeah, I bet that would uh, yeah, be something… to think about. And probably like, if you had done it before, right?...” 

Charles said nothing, let the man ramble on, knowing he would eventually get to the point. Not necessarily today, but sooner or later he’d reach it, and Charles knew from years of experience that the quickest way for Nathan to reach a conclusion was usually to let him work it out on his own. Still, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise in some strange anticipation, awaiting Nathan’s revelation as though it were forthcoming. And perhaps it was. The frontman’s face was pale, anxious, ears bright red against the black of his hair, and he shifted from foot to foot as though, like it or not, the truth was about to come out.

“I don’t think I’d ever try it… I mean, uh, probably not. Maybe.” Nathan said. 

_Maybe._

Charles slid the latches closed on his briefcase, but did not pick it up. His fingers were suddenly numb, that fire and ice feeling that usually accompanied some sort of panic attack, but this wasn’t the same -- not at all. It was the familiar adrenaline rush, crashing through his system as his heart rapidly picked up pace, squeezing tight in his chest. Tight enough to knock the wind from his lungs. 

He’d considered this possibility when Nathan had last raised the subject, but in the abstract. A far-fetched idea, compared to the more likely, concrete outcome that Nathan and the boys were about to start some bizarre new masturbatory trend. Or, at least Charles had thought that to be more likely. Now it all clicked. Why else would he have brought this to Charles if not for his, well, _cooperation,_ for lack of a better term? He felt stupid, obtuse for having misinterpreted Nathan’s signals, but at the same time relieved to have figured it out at last. 

This ‘maybe’ was the closest Nathan was going to get to a direct admission, because he’d never ask, never say aloud, “I want you to fuck me, Charles.” But that was alright. Charles could compensate, could facilitate. And if Nathan needed him to be the one to say it, he would, because he’d figured out what he wanted now. And within the realm of Earthly possibility, Charles would give him anything. 

The silence in the conference room was deafening, now. No sound but their breathing, discongruent, and louder than before. Charles removed his glasses and cleaned a smudge from the lens before he angled his face toward Nathan and said:

“I’d like to try.” 

A half dozen micro-expressions flitted across the frontman’s features -- indistinct, inscrutable, each one vanishing before Charles could discern what it might be, what emotion might lie behind it. The front man’s grip on the Dethphone was suddenly vice-like, and Charles caught the shape of the white volume box on the screen, its bars rapidly vanishing as thick fingers squeezed the body of the phone into silence. Around them, the atmosphere in the room was changing; a sharp spike in pressure to make the ears pop, static electricity in the air to raise the finest hairs on exposed skin. Charles allowed the larger-than-life sensations to wash over him, as the front man coughed, awkwardly, and mumbled, “I, uhh…”

Nathan hated to be put on the spot. Really and truly _hated_ it. It wasn’t in him to come up with a response on the fly, in the spur of the moment. He needed time to think, to process things on his own, without his manager staring him expectantly in the face. And Charles knew this, would allow for it, because he could withstand a little lingering anticipation. Rather than watch the front man put his foot in his mouth, Charles picked up his briefcase, checked his watch, and excused himself from the room with a simple, “I’ll be in my office if you need anything.” 

Nathan did not visit his office. 

In fact, Nathan didn’t speak to him much at all for awhile. Charles assumed the distance was his way of processing things, of coming to terms with their conversation and what the next step would be, so he gave him the space to do so, though the wait was harder than he would have expected. Charles wavered near constantly between assurance that Nathan would eventually come around, and doubt of his own ability to read the man, to decipher his awkward silences and cryptic late-night texts.

_So many late-night texts._

Messaging with Nathan was like some backwards mockery of confession, like the vocalist was kneeling below the screen to keep it impersonal, delivering messages just obscure enough to keep Charles guessing, the digital equivalent of “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.” _Be more specific,_ Charles wanted to say, or type, rather, but he didn’t. He held his tongue, stilled his hand, had patience and faith enough so that even when he received a text at four in the morning from Nathan saying, _“Been up all night thinking about things,”_ he didn’t react, didn’t respond too quickly. Just waited.

Weeks passed before they found themselves in bed together again, in that wordless way they always did. As though their souls had grown tired of the distance, and dragged their bodies together to reconnect. A feverish, skin-to-skin reunion under the red silk of the frontman’s topsheet, with the lights low and the air on to cool their heated skin. Nathan’s lips were everywhere at once -- his forehead, cheeks, throat, and it was all Charles could do to keep his heart beating, his lungs breathing, crushed beneath the weight of his physical body and the heavy, formless emotion behind each and every touch. 

Charles had been planning for this night since their conversation in the conference room. He’d gone over it in his mind a dozen times, how he’d take things in hand, how Nathan would respond, but for all his preparation the man refused to give him the opportunity. Every time Charles opened his mouth to speak, Nathan covered it with a kiss. When he’d placed his palms against the planes of the man’s chest and attempted to push up, Nathan’s fingers had circled his wrists and dragged them back down. He was vividly reminded of their first few evenings together, suspended indefinitely in heavy petting as Nathan struggled to find the courage to progress to the next step, to actually slip his hand beneath the waistband of Charles’ slacks. And here he’d gone again and locked himself in that same cycle of hesitation, similar, and yet different now in that his apprehension came from relinquishing control rather than taking it. 

Charles was panting, heaving under him, trying in vain to get a word in as unusually heavy hands held him flush against the mattress. But Nathan would not ease up, until at last, after a bruising kiss, Charles tore his head to the side and huffed meaningfully into his ear, _“Nathan.”_

The man groaned into his shoulder. A nervous sound, but Charles felt Nathan’s cock throb between them and knew he wanted this, but for a million reasons couldn’t bring himself to ask. Fear of the act itself, the newness and uncertainty for sure, but Charles had a niggling suspicion Nathan’s hesitation was more so from what it implied, what _asking_ for it implied. That he was somehow less brutal, less man for wanting this experience, a foolish thought Charles was only too willing to rid him of. He freed a hand, brought it to the nape of Nathan’s neck and squeezed reassuringly as he said, out of breath:

“I want to try.” 

Nathan’s whole body shuddered, and Charles felt what was almost certainly a nod against his cheek before the frontman’s weight was gone, and he could suddenly breathe again. Nathan had rolled off sideways onto his back, and Charles propped himself up onto his elbows to get a look at him, eyes running over the enormous, splayed form lying close beside his own. All arms and legs and taut, bunched muscle beneath sweat-slick skin. Charles placed a hand on the soft, lightly haired belly, and his fingers kneaded into the giving flesh before moving downwards, palm coming to rest against the inside of a broad thigh. He turned it out, and Nathan’s legs parted willingly. For once, when their eyes met, the front man didn’t glance away, and Charles gulped as his stomach clenched, hard. 

“We can stop at any time,” he said. 

Nathan jerked his chin in acknowledgement and sat up slowly, looking at Charles for direction. “Should I, uh…” He made to turn onto his hands and knees, and Charles nodded. 

“That would probably be best.” 

Probably. The confidence Charles had been feeling up till now was fading fast, as the reality of the thing sunk in. He’d never done this before -- never in his life even tried. But he knew enough from his experiences with Nathan how it was supposed to go, and tried to emulate the same self-assurance the other man possessed when in this position. As Nathan turned onto his stomach, Charles slid the drawer of the bedside table open, nearly knocking the single lit lamp off the top before plunging his hand inside. Blindly, he sorted through open foil wrappers and used kleenex until his fingers closed around an unused condom. He retrieved the lube from under a stack of tissues, and the small bottle was cold and slimy in his hands. 

He turned back, and Nathan had moved onto all fours. This was the first time Charles had ever seen him from this exact angle, and it was a little strange, a little embarrassing for them both. The man had smashed his face into the sheets, and his shoulders were bunched up around his neck. 

“Nathan,” he said, sounding far more composed than he felt. Nothing. Not a word. Charles took a deep breath, stroked his hand up and down across the broad expanse of his back, and murmured:

“You’re incredible.”

And he was. Physically beautiful, almost incomprehensibly so. This divine, supernal being, spread out before him on hands and knees, awaiting his touch. Nathan snorted and shifted self-consciously, but as Charles continued to rub his back his muscles relaxed, and their combined weight sunk deeper into the bed as he let go of the tension in his body. After a minute Charles reached down and tucked the condom between the mattress and Nathan’s bare foot, so as not to lose it. He uncapped the lube, a loud _snap,_ and paused when Nathan flinched at the noise. Charles held back a nervous laugh, because unseen by Nathan, he’d flinched too.

“You okay?” He asked. The back of Nathan’s head bobbed ‘yes,’ as Charles turned the bottle over in his hand. Charles hesitated to talk too much -- he had a tendency to chatter when he was nervous, and the last thing Nathan needed right now was a play-by-play. Still, familiar as he was with the process, the big man seemed uncomfortable to be experiencing it in the reverse. At the very least Charles owed it to him to keep him informed, to keep that line of communication open so that if Nathan needed him to stop he’d feel comfortable saying so. “It’s going to be cold,” Charles warned.

Nathan grunted in response, and Charles squeezed a liberal amount of liquid onto his cupped fingers, watching it pool into a small, clear puddle. He capped the bottle one-handed and dropped it onto the mattress before bringing his palm to Nathan’s backside. 

“Fuuuck, that is cold,” Nathan hissed, as the lube drooled down over his asshole and onto the tightened skin of his balls. Charles suppressed a chuckle, and rolled his fingers in broad strokes between his buttocks until the liquid had warmed to the touch, until he felt Nathan had acclimated to the sensation and was ready to begin. His breathing was loud, but even, and after a minute Charles paused and asked: 

“Are you ready?” 

Nathan groaned, and Charles saw his elbow bend under his body as he took himself in hand. “Fuck. Yeah, okay.”

So he slid a finger inside, the middle one, and kept it still as Nathan clenched around the intrusion and said, “God, that feels fucking _weird._ Fuck.” Charles’ lips twitched upward, because weird though it might feel he could see Nathan’s arm moving quickly, rhythmically under his body, stroking off to the sensation. He waited a moment before he began to move the finger inside him, and Nathan said no more, kept up his rhythm until Charles asked if he could take another, at which point he moaned affirmatively and beat faster. So he added a second, and eventually a third, all the while patient, careful, as Nathan had been with him in the beginning. Back before either of them had ever slept with another man, when everything was new, and Charles had been the one anxiously glancing over his shoulder as Nathan asked, “Is this okay?” 

Nathan wasn’t looking over his shoulder, though. He kept his head bowed in silent concentration, body steady but for the occasional twinge when the fingers changed direction inside him. Charles’ free hand was on the small of Nathan’s back, rubbing in slow, concentric circles, a timid imitation of what Nathan’s larger hands had done unto him in nights’ past. Charles had found it soothing, hoped it might feel the same to Nathan, who was breathing heavily by the time he withdrew his fingers and felt blindly for the condom under his foot. He found it, started to tear it open, but as the package ripped Nathan’s body jerked in surprise and Charles stilled his hands. Of course he’d react to the noise, what it represented. What had happened to talking him through it? Talking them both through it? Charles felt his ears grow warm as he stumbled with what to say, how to phrase the next step without being vulgar, and ultimately decided on:

“I’m going to put it in now.”

Nathan didn’t laugh, didn’t react, but Charles could have laughed for them both. That sounded just -- incredibly juvenile, like something a teenager would say, made worse by the fact that his voice was trembling. With anticipation? Nerves? He couldn’t be sure, but his fingers were shaking so badly he fumbled the condom and dropped it onto Nathan’s calf. To his credit, if Nathan noticed anything amiss he kept quiet, waited patiently as Charles picked it back up and rolled it on, a strange, distantly familiar sensation. He located the bottle of lube and spread a palmful over the latex in long, thorough strokes, then slowly, softly, he placed his hands on either side of Nathan’s waist and nudged his hips to a good height. The hand Nathan had been stroking himself with was now a fluttery distraction, and fell away from his groin as he sunk heavily onto both elbows, turning a cheek to stare wordlessly over his shoulder. Charles met his gaze questioningly, and Nathan nodded in consent before dropping his head down onto his arms. 

“Just relax,” Charles murmured, as his own heart thumped hard and fast in his chest. He wondered dimly if this is what it felt like to have a heart attack, if the numbness in his hands and the roaring in his ears was his body’s way of saying _‘You’re about to die, Charles.’_ But even as he thought it he knew better, knew it was just the panic, and that he could reign it in if he just focused. _Focus._ With numb fingers Charles gripped the base of his cock and lined up, easing Nathan’s hips back with the other hand as he took a calming breath. And then he pressed forward, a gradual progression of the hips, nothing fast or forceful. But nothing happened, and after a few seconds the larger man’s body went rigid. “Relax,” Charles said again, and Nathan snorted.

_“I am fucking relaxed.”_

But he’d tensed completely, locked his limbs so tight his body felt almost statuesque. It was like lording over Michelangelo’s _David_ , only prostrate. Charles swiftly eased off, and his erection slid uselessly against the backs of Nathan’s thighs as he leaned up to kiss his shoulder blade, battling back a wave of guilt. Nothing was wrong, he told himself. This was to be expected. It happened all the time the other way around, when Nathan was the one trying to enter him, though granted Nathan was a significantly larger guy. Still, that didn’t erase the fact that he was nervous now, as was only natural. 

Nathan didn’t look at him, kept his face pressed into his arms, so Charles kept close until he felt some of the tension leave his body, at which point he again kissed the scorching skin of his back and asked, “Okay?” 

“Yeah,” Nathan rumbled, “Yeah, just… sorry.” He shifted his weight and sucked in a deep lungful of air, blowing it out through his nose in one long, slow puff. Charles straightened up and rocked back on his heels, gathering a handful of the frontman’s long, tangled black hair in his hands before tucking it neatly over one of his hunched shoulders. Nathan laughed a little at that, the ticklish feeling of the loose strands and Charles’ fingers near his neck, and took another deep breath. 

“Tell me when you’re ready,” Charles said patiently, smoothing his fingers through the mat of sweat-damp hair.

Another breath, a pause, and Nathan muttered, “Okay,” into the crook of his arm.

So Charles repositioned, started again, and this time there was less resistance. Nathan stayed still and kept his head down, a strangled groan in his throat as Charles pressed into him, and then a choking gasp as he finally slid inside. 

“Oh, _fuck_!” Nathan growled out, as Charles slowly closed the distance between their bodies, rolling his pelvis until their skin was flush, till he could go no further, till every achingly hard inch was fully buried, and just the faintest tuft of pubic hair could be seen between their connected bodies. Charles bit the inside of his cheek to keep his mouth shut, to keep the stupid groan from escaping, and exhaled sharply from his nostrils. 

Charles had overcompensated with the lube. Nathan’s thighs were slick with it where it had dribbled down, sticky against his own thighs now, and when he inched back their skin made a peeling sound, a soft _scchhk!_ Nathan twitched at the feeling, the strange, unfamiliar tug and said “Wait,” through clenched teeth, distorting the word so it sounded harder, more emphatic than he meant it. Charles waited. Swallowed his heart and waited, as his dick throbbed and his pulse raced. He didn’t need to be told twice -- the last thing he wanted was for Nathan to suffer unnecessarily, or experience discomfort more than the absolute minimum.

“Is it alright?” Charles asked breathlessly, and Nathan jerked his head in response. His breath was whistling through his nose, labored but slow, deep -- like he’d run a mile and was slowly coming back to himself. Charles watched as Nathan turned his head to the side, resting his ear and cheek against the mattress, and he could see the sharp, screwed up angle of his profile, a scrunched shut eye and wrinkled black brow. And Charles felt a little dizzy, a little out of body as the reality of the act settled over him, that he was inside _Nathan Explosion_ , the first and only. An honor, a _privilege_ unlike anything he’d ever experienced, unlike anything he’d ever dared to imagine. 

And then Nathan was moving, shifting so that the majority of his weight fell to his bracing left forearm, leaving his right hand free to run cautiously down the taut skin of his belly, over the swell of his beer gut until his fingers closed around his forgotten manhood, half-hard. He shivered, and Charles’ knees gave out a fraction, because that had invoked a sensation, a hard _squeeze_ all along the length of his dick. 

As Nathan set up a rhythm, Charles rubbed his hands cautiously along the curve of his backside, and felt quietly thrilled. Touching him still felt, at times, forbidden, and though he knew better than to dwell on it, Nathan’s bare skin still felt far too sacred to be touched by Charles’ very human hands. Nathan didn’t seemed to notice the hesitation in his fingers as they gripped and kneaded tentatively into his flesh, and Charles gradually relaxed into it, let his hands really run over his skin as Nathan groaned and said into his arm:

“Try moving, now.” 

An electric current ran down Charles’ spine at the challenge, a twist of both excitement and fear. God, how he wanted to try. To really fuck Nathan, to render him incapable of speech, or thought, or restraint, to make him writhe on the sheets, and howl with the need of it, to drill him right to the edge and leave him begging, pleading to come. And then _God_ , when he’d come, to make a complete mess of himself, releasing onto the sheets beneath them and shuddering in that way that he did, a full-body spasm with each wave of his orgasm. The best of his life, one that he’d fantasize about for months -- years to come. 

A tall order, considering Nathan had yet to become fully erect, and Charles hadn’t moved since he’d stuck it in. Nathan caught his eye, and Charles nodded shortly to indicate he’d heard him, would be trying to move any minute now, as soon as he’d gathered his wits about him. Charles said a silent prayer, and used his grip on Nathan’s hips to push his body back, withdrawing a slow, solid two inches before pressing softly back forward. Nathan didn’t react. No moaning, no twinging, he didn’t so much as bat an eyelash, so Charles chanced it again, this time waiting until the head of his cock was just starting to emerge before thrusting back in, a shade faster this time. Then again. And again. Painfully slow, because Nathan seemed content with that, not pained by it, and Charles liked the pace, the seconds it gave him to savor the contrast of Nathan’s insides, the tight heat of them, to the chill of the outside air that licked at the lubed skin of the condom. 

Charles soon set a pace and could feel Nathan stroking to it, his elbow switching between a lazy jerk and a quicker, more enthusiastic speed. And just as Charles was starting to get comfortable with it, nay, even _confident_ in his ability to please the man, Nathan rocked back against his next thrust, and then the next. Charles nearly pulled out but caught himself, instead digging his fingers into the flesh of Nathan’s hips until they stilled. 

“Don’t --” he said through his teeth, and Nathan glanced, confused, over his shoulder. Charles couldn’t handle that. That _rocking motion._ For God’s sake, he could hardly withstand being inside the man as it were, let alone to have him move back against him like that, matching his thrusts as though asking -- _begging_ for more, for a deeper, harder fuck. 

“It’s too, ah… too much.” 

Charles’ face burned with shame at the admission, but Nathan only groaned and buried his face back into the sheets, and his body trembled as the pace of his fist quickened. The CFO could never get over the indignity of it, his _short fuse_ , regardless of the fact that Nathan had said in the past that he liked it, was now stroking his fully hard dick to the thought of it. As flattering as it was for Nathan, Charles found it difficult to share his enthusiasm and kept still, too embarrassed to continue until an impatient “ _Charles,_ ” drew his attention back to the task at hand.

Charles could tell Nathan was close now. Could tell by the way his hips jerked, and his muscles tensed, and the short, quick pace of his fist on his dick, and how he was holding his breath now, letting it out in bursts before gulping new air in. Charles closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see it, his red skin and heaving shoulders and screwed up expression, because just knowing Nathan was about to come was enough to push him over the edge he’d been toeing since they’d begun. 

“ _Nathan,_ ” he said warningly, and pressed his fingers into the man’s side, the soft flesh above his hip. A groan in response, one of fond frustration as Nathan fought to climb that peak, beating faster. He was wearing a condom -- for Christ’s sake, he wasn’t even moving, and yet Charles struggled to button the desire down, the hot, leaden pressure at the pit of his stomach, made worse by the frontman’s sudden fervency. “Nathan, really, I ah… I’m very close,” he managed, and the thin skin of his face tingled as the blood rushed to his ears and cheeks.

Nathan’s giant form gave a mighty shake and Charles found himself rocking into him again, short, shallow thrusts that buckled the front man near flat against the mattress. There was sweat in Charles’ eyes now, and he blinked furiously to clear them, bringing Nathan’s blurred features into semi-focus, the contorted angle of his crushed up face softly illuminated by the lamplight, though in the darkness it looked as though the light were coming from beneath his red-brown skin. And Charles felt mesmerized by the look of him, the curl of his upper lip and the wrinkles above the bridge of his nose, the most beautiful sight he'd ever seen till he caught a glimpse of his cock half buried in Nathan’s ass, and let out the least dignified noise he'd ever heard leave the confines of his own mouth. Charles ground his teeth together then and consciously slowed his pace, disregarding Nathan's sly efforts to shift his hips back as he'd done before. Charles hovered a few inches above his movements, until Nathan let out a roar of frustration and slammed a heavy fist against the bed.

“ _Damn it_ , Charles,” Nathan said hoarsely, and Charles felt his restraint snap like a rubber band. For the few seconds he could bare it, he'd fuck Nathan exactly as he wanted, short fuse be damned. 

At the first hard slap of skin on skin Nathan tensed in surprise, but he soon relaxed, throwing his body back against the barrage of quick, firm thrusts from behind with a low growl of approval. Charles' fingers dug and pulled at the heavy flesh that overflowed from Nathan's sides, before running up his back and into his hair, knotting in the wet strands and twisting until Nathan groaned in acknowledgement of the sensation, the tug at his scalp that sent shivers rocketing from the base of his neck to the tips of his big toes. The heat was white hot in Charles’ groin now, and as Nathan met his next thrust with a stream of curses Charles managed to stutter out, "I'm going to come," a few seconds too late, for the words had hardly left his mouth before Charles collapsed from the strength of his release, rutting slow and gentle into the heaving form beneath him. There had been no time to get the condom off, and Charles could feel the strange, liquid heat of ejaculate around his spent cock, and then another sensation, the rhythmic contraction of Nathan's insides as the front man came onto the sheets and his own hands with a deafening, animal roar, loud and then soft as he pressed his face self-consciously into the mattress and smothered the noise. 

And it was done. Charles collapsed sideways and rolled onto his back in one motion, putting as much distance as he could between their sweaty bodies in the process. Then nothing for awhile, just the blurry wooden ceiling and the beating of blood in his ears as he gradually caught his breath, and the vague notion that beside him Nathan was doing the same. 

It was awhile before he really became aware of their surroundings. The blast of the AC was the first thing he noticed, as it had raised the thick hairs on his arms and legs, and blown the damp patch between them cold. Beside him, Nathan had not moved, was lying limply with his arms pinned under him, and his legs at odd angles. Charles watched from the corner of his eye as he, too, slowly came to life to roll gingerly onto his back. He winced.

“Ow,” Nathan said after a moment, frowning stupidly, as though despite his initial concern about pain and discomfort he’d figured to somehow remain exempt from it. Charles almost laughed. The expression on Nathan’s face, the unreality of the whole evening, it was all too much, and he felt an overwhelming, inappropriate urge to break the silence with a little laughter. But Nathan wouldn’t interpret it right, would think he was laughing at him as opposed to with him, or just laughing in general, as it were. 

“Are you okay?” Charles asked, and Nathan made a face toward the ceiling as answer, like he was thinking about it. Charles kept quiet so he could ponder the question, maybe decide if he was okay or not, but after a minute it became clear Nathan was not thinking about his current state -- physical or otherwise, but was starting to fall asleep, a half-snore escaping his parted lips. Charles nudged him with the tip of his elbow, and Nathan turned slightly away. 

A few seconds from falling asleep himself, Charles blurted out a somewhat slurred, “ _Sorry._ ” An apology in reference to his early release, to Nathan’s wincing, and his “ _Ow,_ ” and his silence, to whatever there was to be sorry for that was making him feel so suddenly and foolishly anxious. He tried to make a vague gesture with his hand, but it merely twisted and fell limply back to the damp mattress with a little _fwump_. 

Nathan took a long time in looking at him, as though the simple act of moving his eyeballs an inch to the left was a great exertion. Yet his gaze was warm when it landed, and he reached out one big, sweaty hand and cuffed Charles on the shoulder. “Don’t be,” he said, and Charles nodded because the sentiment was sincere, and it was enough. Nathan dropped his hand and continued to lay flat as Charles started to clean up, peeling and tying off the condom before dropping it in the bin next to the nightstand. His clothes were in a heap a few inches from the bed, and he managed to gather them up and tug on his boxer briefs all without standing before settling back against the mattress, eyelids drooping as the last of the energy drained from his limbs.

“I’ve gotta take a shower,” Nathan said, after a minute of lying side by side. Charles hummed in response and tried to pry his eyes open a little wider to watch him get up. It was slow going. Nathan rolled up one vertebrae at a time, his back popping, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed with a grunt of effort. He paused like that for a moment, seated with his arms propped like he was about to push off and stand up, but he didn’t. Just sat there with his head bowed, and Charles looked at him for awhile, at how small he seemed compared to the giant red altar that was his bed. And yet small as Nathan seemed, Charles felt eclipsed by sheer proximity, like he lie in the shadow of something greater than a man. 

At last Nathan stood to walk crookedly toward the bathroom, and the door clicked shut behind him. The hiss of the shower came seconds later, and Charles closed his eyes and relaxed to the sound of the water spattering the tile. The sound was peace, and quiet, and blissfully routine, a welcome reprieve to the newness of nearly everything else that had transpired that night. Familiar as he was with the frontman’s long showers, Charles floated in semi-consciousness for a time and started to unpack all that had happened, replaying the highlights over in his mind, letting the contentment set warm and heavy under his sweat-chilled skin.

He was roused by the opening of the bathroom door sometime later, and he glanced at the clock on the nightstand -- half past two in the morning. The frontman emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, cloaked in his maroon bathrobe and ruffling his hair with a towel. He nodded to Charles, who nodded back as he gathered his clothing into a bundle and slipped past him into the bathroom.

Inside was hot and damp, and bright compared to the darkness of the bedroom. Charles fiddled with the dimmer on the wall until the lighting was bearable, and hopped into Nathan’s shower after shedding his briefs and arranging his clothing on the towel rack. The water pressure was stronger than that of his own shower, and he let the stream run hot, the way Nathan liked it. Typically Charles favored a cold shower, something invigorating to get the blood flowing, but the hard heat was a nice deviation from the chill he was used to. Not the sort of thing he could tolerate every day, but enjoyable once in awhile. He washed thoroughly, thinking longingly of his own bath products as he made do with Nathan’s 3-In-One shower gel, and toweled dry on the bath mat before slipping into his old clothes. The suit that had this morning smelled of dry cleaning was now limp, and stunk of sweat and Nathan’s floor, but it was only temporary. As soon as he returned to his own rooms he could change into something clean, and with that thought Charles exited the bathroom on bare feet, flicking the light off as he went. 

Nathan was sprawled on the middle of the bed, face down about a foot away from the damp patch. Charles cleared his throat, and the big lump shifted to show he was still awake, kicking his robe into place around his shins. Charles sat lightly on the edge of the bed next to his forgotten shoes and socks and began toweling his feet dry. 

“Do you ah… need anything?” Charles asked after a minute.

Silence, and then Nathan raised his face off the pillow. 

“Tequila.”

Charles said nothing, rolled his eyes and pulled one sock up over each ankle at a time. Nathan glanced over his shoulder to see that his joke had not gone over, and amended, “Just uh. Just kidding. But uh, maybe some beer and a… pizza.” 

Charles smirked and picked a piece of sock lint out of the sole of a loafer before slipping it on. He’d have those things sent up to Nathan -- along with some Advil PM and a heating pad. “Anything else?” 

“Yeah,” Nathan said, “Some Fritos, the barbecue ones. The honey barbecue twists. And… you know what, just have Jean Pierre call me,” Nathan mumbled, before planting his face back into the pillow. 

Charles laughed and patted the back of Nathan’s calf before standing, both shoes now on. “I’ll do that,” he said, and he walked to the door. 

He was about to step out when Nathan’s voice made him pause. 

“‘Night, Charles.”

The CFO smiled, but did not turn around. 

“Good night, Nathan,” Charles said, and he closed the bedroom door.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!


End file.
